


Gone West

by lesbianferrissbueller



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (kinda), Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Canon Compliant, Ghost Sex, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Moving On, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 03, Recovery, SO, Tragedy, Wakes & Funerals, billy is dead, this is really really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21558049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianferrissbueller/pseuds/lesbianferrissbueller
Summary: The day after the funeral, when Steve was really honestly thinking about offing himself, when he sat up in bed, reaching for his car keys:/“Don’t be a dumbshit, Harrington.”/Steve stopped cold. It couldn’t be. It wasn't. Steve looked down at the pendant rest on his chest, just over his heart.Could it be? Unmistakable tone, fire and gravel and silk. Steve knew he was going crazy right then and there. He stood up off his bed, turning fully around, looking, searching, hoping beyond hope-/“You know you’re losing it, right, babe?”/“Even if I wasn’t you’d tell me I was,” Steve whispered only to hear it again. The endlessly familiar, low, honeyed voice.It laughed- no.He laughed.“Billy?” Steve barely said. He didn’t want to risk hearing the name for nothing./“Always hoped you’d miss me, pretty boy. But not like this.”/Steve felt new, sweet-salt tears slid down his cheek to hit the edge of his lip./“Never like this.”/“Are you... You’re dead.” Steve tried.Nothing.“C’mon, don’t fuck with me man. Haven't I been through enough?” Who was he even talking to? Billy? Himself? God?/“You need to let me go.”/
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 19
Kudos: 82





	Gone West

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Go West](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20621075) by [lesbianferrissbueller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianferrissbueller/pseuds/lesbianferrissbueller). 



> IMPORTANT: hey if ur Reading this this is lesbianferris of the future here to say I don’t exactly Love this work it was One of my first and I regularly consider deleting it so please proceed with that in mind hope u have a good day <3
> 
> This is a condensed version of the original plot line for my big fic, Go West.  
> I'm glad Go West has a happier ending than this one.  
> Im sorry in advance. But everything's ok eventually. I promise.

Steve knows he’s going crazy. 

“When people are sad sometimes… they just kinda lose it.” Robin had told him. 

Sad. Like that was it. One three letter word. One fucking word to boil down how angry and alone and broken and distraught and insane and horrible, every single fucking day just horrible he felt. 

She didn’t know if he was listening when she said that.

He’d been practically unresponsive since the funeral.

Nobody asked Steve why he sat up front at Billy’s funeral. Robin wasn't even sure if he’d processed the news until he showed up at the church, ontime, showered, smelling like cologne, in a pressed black suit. He hadn't so much as gotten out of bed in the past week and he even did his hair. 

Kinda looked like he was going on the world’s gothiest date.

He didn’t sit near Billy’s parents, who had forced Max to sit with them. He sat at the far right end of the front row, as far from them as possible. 

Robin sat next to him. She touched his shoulder. He barely even blinked. 

She wondered if this was the bounce-back from the Fourth of July. 

Because on the Fourth, when they’d dragged Billy’s body out of Starcourt, Steve had to be restrained and knocked out from total hysteria. At that point, no one knew why, not even Robin, but she held onto him anyway, while Max stood motionless and crying next to them.

Steve cried gracelessly, Robin guessed he didn’t have a lot of practice. His shoulders shook, his cheeks and nose went pink, he dug his fingernails into Robin‘s forearms where he held them. 

“Steve- Steve! Look at me, c’mon big guy-”

“He’s- he’s not. Robin. He’s. Robin I can’t. I need. I didn’t.” Red and blue light flickered across Steve’s face from the sirens around them. 

“Steve you’re not making any sense.” She clutched at his arm but he pushed her off. 

He had to be held down and drugged by a couple of EMTs. 

He hadn’t so much as spoken to anyone since then. 

Robin got the whole story from Max. 

A love story. 

A doomed and beautiful love story where Billy was getting better and Steve was getting happy and they were recklessly, stupidly in love, only falling farther and it all ended, abruptly, with Billy’s bloodied and broken body on the shiny tile of Starcourt Mall. 

And Steve, still alive. 

Steve always survived stuff like this. Even when he didn’t want to. 

Robin was thinking about that now, staring at the black and gold-lined casket. Steve was such a damn survivor. 

And he didn’t say a word to anyone for a whole week. 

And then after everyone had left the service, save him and Max, sitting on the floor of the center isle, just them and the casket, he said:

“Should have been me.”

Max didn’t say anything back. She just let her head fall against Steve’s jacketed shoulder and watched her tears make a dark spot on the carpet below her. 

Steve drove her home. They didn’t talk. Max put on the radio, kinda quiet. She couldn't stand the silence. 

Before she got out of the car at her house, she had a gift for Steve. 

“Don't open it while I’m here. I… I can’t deal. With that.” Max managed. 

Steve just nodded, taking a small black box out of her hand. 

Steve waited, absently watching Max close her front door behind her, staring at the house behind her, acutely aware of Billy’s things being efficiently removed and disposed of by his father. 

Steve hated seeing Neil at the funeral. 

He tore his gaze away from the house to open the black box. 

He knew what it was, didn’t know what to do with the knowing. 

The chain of Billy’s pendant was still dark red and brown in places. 

No one ever cleaned off the blood. 

Steve lifted it from the box, and instinctively unclasped it to hook around his own neck. 

He didn’t really know why. 

He guessed he needed to. 

It was heavier than he’d expected to be. 

He thought about Billy wearing it as he drove home. He had to pull over to force himself to stop crying so he could just  _ see _ .

Steve thought about offing himself. 

He could do it pretty easily. Just drive his car into the lake. Or get the shotgun out of the garage. 

Or something. 

In bed for a week, up and at ‘em for the funeral, then straight back to bed. 

He wasn't eating either. 

Robin kept coming over. An then leaving again. He didn’t talk to her. He felt kinda bad about it too. 

He should just end it here. 

If there was an afterlife… well, Billy’d be rotting in hell. 

Unless his deeds on the Fourth won him a last minute one-way ticket to the spirit in the sky.

The day after the funeral, when Steve was really honestly thinking about it, when he sat up in bed, reaching for his car keys:

_ “Don’t be a dumbshit, Harrington.” _

Steve stopped cold. It couldn’t be. It wasn't. Steve looked down at the pendant rest on his chest, just over his heart. 

Could it be? Unmistakable tone, fire and gravel and silk. Steve knew he was going crazy right then and there. He stood up off his bed, turning fully around, looking, searching, hoping beyond hope-

_ “You know you’re losing it, right, babe?” _

“Even if I wasn’t you’d tell me I was,” Steve whispered, only to hear it again. The endlessly familiar, low, honeyed voice. 

It laughed- no. 

_ He _ laughed.

“Billy?” Steve barely said. He didn’t want to risk hearing the name for nothing.

_ “Always hoped you’d miss me, pretty boy. But not like this.” _

Steve felt new, sweet-salt tears slid down his cheek to hit the edge of his lip. 

_ “Never like this.” _

“Are you... You’re dead.” Steve tried.

Nothing.

“C’mon, don’t fuck with me, man. Haven't I been through enough?” Who was he even talking to? Billy? Himself? God?

_ “You need to let me go.” _

Steve tries to let Billy go for maybe an hour. Then he tries desperately for rest of the day to hear his voice again. 

He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep, he stands fully clothed in the shower for three hours. That’s mostly to just try to snap him back to reality.

Robin comes over. He’s changed into clean clothes again by then. He doesn't want her to think he’s losing it. 

Even if he is. 

“I heard his voice.” He tells her eventually, giving up. 

She doesn't ask who. “What do you mean?”

“I could hear his voice. Talking to me.”

“Like you remembered it?” She furrows her brow. 

“No, like I heard it. Like he was talking to me.”

Robin chews her cheek a little.

“You think I’m crazy.” Steve tells her. 

No, she doesn't. Well. 

“When people are sad sometimes… they just kinda lose it.” 

Sad.

And it went on like that.

Until Thursday night, when Steve heard someone ringing the doorbell over and over and over and knew it wasn't Billy like he hoped it would be because he was dead and more importantly he always knocked and opened it and it was Max.

In her pyjamas. 

Soaking wet from the rain- she had walked. 

With a yellow and purple bruise darkening over her cheekbone and a small split in her lip. 

Steve was angry for the first time since before the Fourth. 

He remembered what felt like millions of times Billy had showed up at his house like this, tore up, bleeding, in the middle of the night for help. Playing it down, aloof, in a blind rage, or totally silent. 

“What’d he do?” Steve asked her. 

“Threw a book at my head.” She shrugged. “Billy told me he used to come to your house when this happened.”

They stood just inside Steve’s doorway for maybe a minute, each staring at the other, each wishing they were looking at Billy. 

Steve hugged her, tight. She blinked a couple tears into his sweatshirt's shoulder. 

Steve was patching up Max when he heard it again. 

_ “Fucking bastard.” _

That could have been Steve remembering things, Billy had said that about his dad a million times. 

Steve almost starts at the voice, but doesnt want to scare Max. 

Steve goes back to the church. 

He’s never been particularly religious, he just needs to feel like he’s doing something. So he prays. 

He feels a bruise from being interrogated still tender on his left knee, feels his bones creak. 

What a curse to be alive long enough to feel your bones creak. 

_ I miss you.  _

He’s talking to God, Billy, or himself. He doesn't know. 

_ I don’t know what to do without you.  _

Steve interlaces his fingers, watches the knuckles go white, eyes open when they should be closed. 

_ Please, let me hear your voice again.  _

_ “You’re losing it, Harrington.” _

Steve is obsessed with hearing Billy’s voice again at this point. He sleeps constantly, or he doesn't sleep at all, he doesn't eat, he sits upside down for two hours, tunes his radio to static, takes everything out of his closet to close himself up in it for the total silence just to listen, hoping, praying, for anything, a laugh, a sigh, a word. 

_ Please, I need you. I miss you. I love you. _

_ “You’re losing it…” _

And after days of this, Steve has a dream.

A dream of Billy.

A dream so life-like he might die under the weight of it. 

Because he prayed for this. 

Got down on his knees in church by himself and fucking prayed that he could see Billy one last time, touch him one last time, give life to the name.

And here he was. 

“This is a dream.” Is the first thing Steve says to Billy when he sees him, red shirt, blue jeans, smoking a cigarette on the end of Steve’s bed. 

“Sure seems like one.” Billy grins at him. 

Everything’s ok again, but it’s not, it’s just Steve remembering what it feels like to be ok. What it feels like to have Billy near.

Steve’s scared, terrified that he’ll talk too loud, reach out and try to touch, and this dream-Billy will vanish, turn to smoke under his fingertips, so he doesn’t move, tries not to breathe, and then, 

Billy moves closer to him. Billy’s right next to him on the bed, Steve can feel his weight pressing into the mattress. 

“You’re not real.”

“Is anything real?” Billy half-jokes, blowing smoke in Steve’s face. 

Steve can taste it. 

Steve realizes Billy’s not wearing shoes. And he looks so natural, so real, so alive, but sad. So achingly sad.

Steve’s still wearing his pendant. He knows because Billy reaches out a hand and touches it, presses it right against Steve’s chest. He’s not real, but god, he feels like it.

“Please-” Steve’s voice cracks on the word. 

“Please what, kiss you?” Billy grins again, and Steve feels something like alcohol on a cut, the kind of hurt that heals, and he’s crying. Steve is crying like he did when he saw Billy’s body, wrenching rattling sobs, and he’s leaning forward and there’s Billy.

Billy with strong arms, holding him tight against his chest and he’s so  _ warm.  _

For the first time in a long time Steve feels safe. He feels relief, if just for a moment, even if its not real, it’s relief. 

“I miss you so fucking much.” Steve chokes out.

“I know.” Billy’s voice is easy, even. 

“I want you back. Why can’t I have you back?”

“It doesn't work like that.”   
“I don’t care- It hurts, you know? Everything- just- I can’t do this without you. Please.”

“It’s not my decision, Stevie.” BIlly murmurs, sounding a little heartbroken himself. “If I could come back to you, I would. You know I would.”

“I miss you.”

“I know.”

“Do you miss me?”

“Can’t miss anything like this.” Billy pulls back a little to smile, more melancholy than Steve can ever remember. “But yeah. I miss you.”

This dreamed up and oh so achingly real Billy kisses Steve, hard on the mouth. As if he could kiss Steve’s tears away. Steve isn’t afraid of him disappearing right now, he just needs to feel more, remember more. 

He grips fingers in Billy’s curls on either side of his head, he kisses him back, and he’s still crying. Still crying like a fucking baby, crying like no tomorrow. 

Steve hasn't had a wet dream in months. But this surely is one of those. 

He can feel the warmth of Billy's hands on him hotter than it might have ever really been. He can feel himself hard in his boxers. He hasn't been hard since…

Well since before the Fourth. 

“I love you.”

And 

“I miss you. I want you back.”

And 

“I think about you all the time.”

“You touch yourself when you think about me, Stevie?” Billy murmurs. Steve can feel Billy’s breath against his ear- or is he just remembering it?

“I haven’t. Not since you last did.” Steve breathes back. It’s the truth.

“Wish I could, baby.” The warmth of Billy’s skin is intoxicating. “You don’t even know.”

Steve doesn't even know exactly what’s happening- it’s a dream after all. 

But he can feel how warm Billy’ skin is, he can remember what it feels like to be close to him in such a real and devastating way and he knows he’s going to get off on it before he even does. Like a sickened and tragic and desperate determination. 

One last time to see him, speak to him, touch him,  _ feel _ him. 

Steve thinks he must actually be fisting hands in his real, light blue sheets when he does it in the dream, overwhelmed by getting to do this again.

_ One last time.  _

_ Please don’t end. Please never end.  _

“Steve,”

Steve loves his name from those lips. 

“I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Keep Max safe.”

“Of course-”

“And let me go.”

_ No. Please.  _

“Billy-” Steve’s voice breaks so hard it disappears in the back of his throat. 

“You have to let me go, baby.” Billy tells him, his own voice no longer steady. “You have to keep going. Move on. Let go-”

“Never, I couldn't- I wouldn't- I couldn’t forget you if I tried.”

“Never said you should forget me.” Billy loosens his grip on Steve. “Never forget me, baby. Just let me go.”

“I cant-”

“Please, Stevie-”

“I won’t-”   
“You gotta-”

“Billy-”

_ “Let go.” _

Steve wakes up with tears streaming down his face and come between his legs. 

It’s 1:33 am. 

He’s never felt loss like this.

He sits up, grabs the pillow out from behind his head, hugs it tight as he can and just sobs. Awful, sickening sobs. He thinks for a while he might throw up. 

It takes him an hour to pull it together. 

He takes a shower. 

He throws up in the shower. 

He strips the sheets on his bed, but doesn’t put anything back. Just sleeps on the bare mattress with the duvet.

And has no more dreams. 

He sees Robin the next day. 

She makes him toast: two slices. He eats one.

He’s been thinking of the pendant, he’s sure it’s what still has him gripped. And he doesn't want to let go. Doesn't want to let go like holding life itself. 

Holding onto a memory, faster fading than anyone wants to admit. 

_ Let go.  _

Let the pendant go.

Go where?

The beach.

California. 

Max likes the plan. 

She got slapped around again. 

She wants to leave- has wanted to leave.

Are they coming back?

They have to.

“I’m leaving.” Steve tells Robin when he next sees her. 

She nods. 

“Coming back, just don’t know when. Couple days.”

“Ok.” She says.

There’s a pause. 

“It’s technically kidnapping, with Max.” Robin’s brow furrows. 

“Yeah. But I have to keep her safe.”

“Ok.”

Robin hugs him. 

He hugs her back. 

He has to be doing something. It feels good to be doing something. 

Steve takes all his savings, packs the essentials (clothes, the bat) into his car, and goes to get Max. 

It’s the middle of the night. 

“Where we going?”

“California.”

She nods. “He’d want to be out there.”

It takes Steve thirty hours to drive to San Diego. 

Max directs him, it’s most of the only conversation they have, and he doesn't stop for more than bathroom breaks, and they only eat once because Steve says Max should and she listens to him. 

Steve knows he shouldn't be awake this long, but he’s been sleeping most days away for the past couple of weeks.

_ “You need sleep, Harrington.” _

Steve touches the pendant at his chest reflexively. It almost feels warm. 

Max is asleep shotgun, so she doesn't hear Steve say back.    
“Can’t.”

_ “Don’t run yourself into the ground.” _ _  
_ “What else should I do, then?”   
__ “You got me there, pretty boy.”

And again when they stop for gas at 2am:

_ “Thank you.” _

“For what?” Steve whispers.

_ “Getting Max out of there. Keeping her safe.” _

“Said I would, didn’t I?”

“Steve, are you talking to me?” Max leans out of the car

“No.” He gives her a quick smile. “Just talking to myself.”

And when they get to the beaches of San Diego it’s just about day break. 

Steve’s never been to California before. He though it might look something like this, and he felt as though he wasn't supposed to see this sunset like this, as though the place was saying to him  _ so glad we could finally meet. Wish it had been under different circumstances.  _

The sky is blue like nighttime got lighter. The shadows are cold and the sun is hot. 

“You’ve never been to the beach before?” Max asked him. 

“Nope.”

“You should take your shoes off.”

Steve took his shoes off. 

They walked through the sand together. 

Then they stopped.

Steve never wants to forget what Billy’s voice sounds like. 

He never wants to forget what his skin feels like.

Never want to forget the blue of his eyes. 

And he won’t.

But he’s scared of the part of it he has to let go to get himself back. To stay sane. 

He wants to stay sane. 

He knows he’ll want to be alive again eventually. 

It’s just so hard to let go. 

“Gonna throw it in?”

Steve looked down at the pendant in his hand. 

He’d taken it off when they parked. 

_ “Gotta let me go.” _

“Yeah.” Steve said to her, closing his hand and turning toward the silently roaring ocean. 

He walked down to the water. 

He kissed the pendant once. 

_ “I love you.” _

And threw it as far as he could, out, into the water.

When Steve turned around Max was sitting on the border of dry sand before where Steve stood, water lapping at his feet. 

“He’s gone.”

“Yeah,” Steve squinted at her through the miraculously clear sunshine. “He is.”

Max just nodded a couple of times. 

“I miss him.” She said eventually. 

“Me too.” Steve almost smiled. “Every fucking day.”

The water sparkled where the sunlight hit it. Green. Deep blue. Bright white. 

Billy must have loved it here. 

“Are we going back to Hawkins?”

“No idea. Up to you.”

“What do we do now?” Max asked him. 

“Keeping going, I guess.” He spoke out, half to her, half to the water. 

Almost like he was talking to Billy, one last time. 

“You know, move on. Let go. Just,” Steve felt a warm breeze glide over his skin, as if feeling was returning to a numb body. “Don’t forget.”

They get a hotel and Steve sleeps for thirteen hours. They say goodbye to California. It seems as if the state itself is in mourning for Billy, like it misses him the way Steve and Max do. 

Then they drive back. 

They go back to Hawkins.

There’s a lawsuit. 

Neil gets more than a slap on the wrist. 

Max gets safer. Joyce gets her for now. 

Steve spends ninety percent of his time with Robin, doing whatever she does. She doesn't mind. She’s glad he’s more responsive.

It’s not all better.

But it’ll get better eventually. 

You have to hold out for when it eventually gets better.

It’s hard, though. When you don't know when ‘eventually’ is, it can feel like forever. 

But it’s not. 

It’s not forever. 

_ “I promise.” _

  
  
  



End file.
